<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>A Hunt to Remember by Rdroigo</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26479192">A Hunt to Remember</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rdroigo/pseuds/Rdroigo'>Rdroigo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Tales from the Hunt [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Monster Hunter (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:08:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,027</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26479192</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rdroigo/pseuds/Rdroigo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Eager to prove her worth, a young huntress decides to track an elusive and dangerous beast.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Tales from the Hunt [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1924990</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Hunt to Remember</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>With a pleased smile and her hands resting on the hilt of the blades sheathed around her belt, the huntress crouched next to the half-eaten, bloody corpse of an Aptonoth. The poor herbivore was covered in slashes, and dart-like feathers were stuck inside the wounds of the animal. All around it, the ground was filled with the marks from claws and heavy impacts that must have come from a tail slap.</p><p>Evidence from a Nargacuga.</p><p>The woman scanned her surroundings, making sure the predator wasn't nearby to reclaim its prey. Or to get a new one. Around her, she could see the broken branches and stomped leaves coming from the southeast, showing her from where the Nargacuga attacked, and to where it possibly retreated. Meanwhile, a felyne was happily gathering herbs and shrooms from the shadow of a big tree, storing his bounty on the barrel-like pack he carried on his back.</p><p>The felyne, who was called Aukan by the huntress, returned to the side of her comrade and picked up one of the feathers to store it on his pack. The woman smiled at Aukan and stood up, giving a good look to the body before walking to the southeast, in silence, while her comrade followed.</p><p>It was midday yet the dense canopy of trees high above them blocked almost all of the light, making the ground level of those jungles mostly obscure, and terribly cold. It made complete sense that a Nargacuga would claim these lands as its territory, and why the Guild wanted to deal with it. The zone was a difficult place to access, filled to the brim with new species of plants and animals to study and document, but all the expeditions made by the wyverian scholars ended up with many injured, and some deaths. All of the survivors reported back about a highly territorial Nargacuga that was constantly tracking and assaulting the teams while they remained in its territory, yet evaded any attempt to be tracked back by the explorers.</p><p>She was preparing for another mission, a big expedition that was planned some time in the future, so this quest was the perfect opportunity to get some renown and, at the same time, get her hands on some better equipment. It was known around town that she was a good tracker and forager, and she was no short on jobs of that kind. But this was her moment to shine, to show them she was a capable hunter, and hopefully get the recognition she needed to be picked up to participate in the expedition.</p><p>While walking through the jungle, as stealthily as she could, the huntress was looking for signs of her prey while she recollected all the notes she studied about the beast. Dark fur, long claws, bladed-like wings and a thick tail, ended in sharp dart-like feathers that could cut through scale armor. It was a creature that hunted with stealth, setting up ambushes on its unfortunate prey and attacking with ferocious speed. Just like her. The similarity caused a soft smile to form on her lips, for she could understand the Nargacuga and, as the saying goes, <q><em>To track prey, first you must know it as you would a brother.</em></q></p><p>Soon, the huntress saw what she wanted: Claw marks along the trunk of a couple of trees, signals that mark the territory of the beast. Aukan walked around the trees, collecting more bits scattered around like scales, feathers and patches of fur from the monster. They advanced for some time, following the trail of branches split in half and marked trees, before reaching a small glade at the base of one of the giant trees that littered the zone, so big and ancient it could be seen from miles away. The glade was littered with old skeletons from other herbivores, big and small, making evident that this was the lair of the Nargacuga. She waited inside some bushes for quite some time, maybe an hour, in complete silence to make sure its inhabitant wouldn't be nearby to ambush her. After making sure they were alone, the huntress swiftly moved in and started her preparations. </p><p>First, she gathered some twigs and branches filled with leaves, and piled them close to the base of the tree. Its roots made something that looked similar to a cave, and there was evidence that it was the nest of the beast, so she prepared the trap near it's entrance. Taking a shock trap from her bag, she planted the dispositive on the ground and covered it with the collected camouflage, before activating the trap. Normally, hunters prefer to use a pitfall trap, for they can immobilize their prey better, but the Nargacuga was an agile beast, with quick reflexes, and it was known they can simply jump out of those traps before they get stuck in them. So she decided to prepare shock traps instead, to stop it quickly and use the small window of the paralysis to weaken and, hopefully, cut off his tail.</p><p>After that, she prepared all the items she could need while the fight was going, arranging them on her belt. Healing potions for possible wounds, flash bombs to blind the beast temporally, knives coated with paralyzing poison to give her more openings. Then, she heard it. The silence. The absolute silence, where no bird was singing, the small sound of twigs breaking, leaves shuffling, and a very, very soft growl that came from far behind. She didn't turn around, there wasn't a need to turn around, for she knew the Nargacuga was ambushing her, its red eyes watching her from the shadows. She was counting on it. Acting like she was unaware, the huntress moved a bit more inside the nest. She needed the cover from the roots over her, so the beast could only attack her from the back.</p><p>Inside the nest was the corpse of a half-eaten Aptonoth, slashed all across its stomach and covered in dart-like feathers. With her hands resting on the hilt of her twin blades, she crouched next to the bloody corpse and waited. Smiling.</p><p>
  <em>"This will be a hunt to remember..."</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sort of a one-shot, sort of a prologue, this was my first time writing a fic by myself. And sorry for the cliffhanger, it had to happen :P</p><p>Hope you enjoyed.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>